Common Sense Solutions - Starting Now

Biking in Copenhagen

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Bicycles make you a grown up faster too.

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Here you have it: 37% of commuters use bikes in Copenhagen, and the city is trying to get that up to 50%. This video showcases a thrilling set of initiatives that the Danes have incorporated to make biking safe and utterly practical.

In addition to the obvious environmental, financial and physical benefits, it makes for infinitely more mature and self reliant youngsters.

In bicycle-centric cultures all over the world, the kids never have to ask their parents for a ride to anything. At a young age, they bike to school, bike to after school activities, and they bike home. By the time they are in their late teens they are perfectly capable of traveling without adult supervision, even abroad.

Young people in bicycle-centric cultures are not infantilized until driving age like they are in the car-centric United States. They have a solid 10 year head start on becoming responsible independent individuals compared with suburban Americans, having managed their schedules and fully presiding over their transportation since grade school.

Nor are they at risk for driving drunk.

It's urgent that we seriously start to rethink our car culture and get biking, wherever possible, now. Let's learn from the Danes!